(of a language) characterized by a prevalence of relatively long words containing a large number of affixes to express syntactic relationships and meanings. Many American Indian languages are polysynthetic.
1795-1805; < Late Greekpolysýnthet(os) much compounded + -ic. See poly-, synthetic
Examples from the web for polysynthetic
Among other things they are polysynthetic and add meaning and context to a word by affixes and/or suffixes.
polysynthetic twinning is not always distinguishable, but a mild, oscillatory zoning is common.
British Dictionary definitions for polysynthetic
polysynthetic
/ˌpɒlɪsɪnˈθɛtɪk/
adjective
1.
denoting languages, such as Inuktitut, in which single words may express the meaning of whole phrases or clauses by virtue of multiple affixes Compare synthetic (sense 3), analytic (sense 3), agglutinative (sense 2)